Writing on 2/12/23 *Special note: About posting comments on the blog…. not being a Google fan… No need to log on but if you’d like to send a text my email address works for that too robtlord@gmail.com
Well again those heuristic shoes are getting their wear and tear … some days are great and some days are hard. Darn. The plans for grey whale watch were dashed on the rocks as the wind was 25-30 mph and no fun was to be had hurling overboard on those calving moms. Hopefully on the way back north another opportunity will arise.
We left the glorious two day stay of wild surf on the Wolf point (Punto Lobo…book’em Dano) and came out the road (2 hours …faster as it had been smoothed in places while we were camped) and aired back up to road pressure. We headed to Guerro Negro where we had great luck resupplying: diesel, Modelo Negro!, 20 gallons of drinking water (84 pesos = $5) and a stop at Tony’s taco truck for incredible fish tacos! With the proverbial wind at our back we headed south to San Ignacio which is an oasis and looks like one… tall palm trees, fig palms and a beautiful square with shops all around…. and like flies on honey, gringos in their oversized campers and every space possible (and they were cheek to jowl) taken. We arrived so late there was nothing to do but get a room at gringo prices… it worked, it was clean and quiet but we’d rather be in the camper in a secluded spot. A wonderful breakfast on the colonial square at Victor’s: Chiliquitas con huevos.
Off down the steep mountain road to the Sea of Cortez, volcanic mountains all around. At the Sea we entered Santa Rosalia, a mining town which once also had a metal foundry. The very same Eiffel architect designed the metal Iglesia de Santa Rosalia. Here we sought out the famous bakeries which had the French influence when the foundry was owned by a French company. Sweet dulce treats in a wide variety and I got my first goat taco: a Birria Taco! Greasy good. We then headed for the town where, yes you guessed right! More ex-pats! A very sweet town on a river entering the sea, called Mulege. Famous for its fighters in the war against the US (1847?). We headed outta town to boondock on the beach… not that pleasant a spot but no other option. As we came out the dirt track in the morning the road was blocked by a truck… I thought I was going to be hit up for camping on private land but it was just a guy taking a nap. Sometimes the place you camp just does not have a good feel … probably more in ones one head but nonetheless (another chance to use that word!) it does not make for a sound sleep.
Loreto. A beautiful place for….. Expats!… I saw as many as I saw Mexicans. Definitely a pretty place, classy shops and restaurants and their equally expensive prices. There was nowhere to walk Lucy and all beach camping prohibited as wealthy dislike the appearance of riffraff. I must say I certaInly looked riffraff-y and so we were forced to succumb to yet another overpriced hotel filled with….;. yup more ‘Amuricuns’ and Canadians. Lucy being required to be walked on the median strip as it was the only unpaved area protected from barrio dogs by traffic. Worked out, but oh the indignity of it all!
One side trip into the mountains after leaving Loreto was to visit the Mission founded in 1699 by San Francisco Javier de Viggé Blaundó. The Church now there was built in1744-1758. It is high in the mountains where there is a flowing spring. Olive trees grow all around, one of which is 315 years old. The Mission is considered the crown jewel of the Baja missions. It was the first to have glass windows and gold leaf altars built in mainland Mexico and brought to the mission by ship and burrows to be reassembled there. The small surrounding village is very pretty.
And so night 12 and what will be night 13 is where we camp. We drove down a mile of arroyo (currently dried river bed to get to a beach) Punta Arena (sandy point) to find a deserted beach with mountains straight up and islands with same on the Sea of Cortez, pelicans diving for fish who leap to escape. Watching a pelican swallow a 10” fish is remarkable. Quiet and free … and yup you guessed it, no ex-pats! A place to set in the camp chair and enjoy it all.
If all goes as planned we head to what could be the best beach camping (unless… ) Agua Verde. At least the road is a bit bad for the last 15 miles so hopefully it is still as it has been for so long. If so 2 nights there.
Wind:
I remember a bumper sticker on an old hippie VW van “Don’t come a’knocking if this van’s a’rocking”… Camped on a beach one learns to try to predict where the wind will come from…and to be sure it will come in the night and all things not battened down will be absent in the morning. What is a real bummer is having the camper violently rocking (not like in the hippie sense) and try sleeping thinking about the screen tent and estimating where you will find it tomorrow. If it was tied down to something, just add that object to also look for! A soft-sided pop-up camper acts like a a Tibetan goat bag musical instrument making sounds as it breaths in sudden whomps and wallops. Being perched up in the loft bed adds to the sway. So by morning your day is set out before you. Naps. My schedule is wide open so that is doable.
The post maelstrom morning found the sea smooth as silk. The outside furniture and screen tent had been rearranged by the wind architect but nothing missing (Lucy’s yoga mat was finally discovered tangled in the frame of the truck. Coffee cures all of those problems and so starts day 45 of the misadventures of the Buckland Boon-dockers at the half. It is amazing how you can just stand around and look at all the crazy pretty all day; birds diving for fish, a school of dolphins arching across the bay, mountain cliff light changing, it’s just one long diversion. Spent the day poking around and a bunch of walks for Lucy with those 500 yard dashes between us off leash! No one else came by today except the couple in the other truck pop up. They were from Homer, AK and Colorado (same county as Clark!) They bug out of AK in winter and this is their 6th year here… spending a couple weeks on each beach and living very frugally. No real costs but food and fuel. We decided to stay here for 3 nights as why not… set up the solar shower and relax. And we wish you the happiest of birthdays today Michelle!
On our third day (2/16) in the late afternoon three more vehicles came to the beach so now we are 5 but spread out over a mile. We leave early tomorrow perhaps back to the Pacific side for a night as we head south. Everyday a surprise. Twenty burrows and horses were galloping down the beach from a mile away towards us this evening. At first I though, where did that party come from?! Then I could see the 5 Mexican cowboys galloping behind them; a remarkable scene unfolding. I grabbed the iPhone and clicked away with one hand and waved my hat in salute to the men. They saluted back as they passed us along the surf. Just yet another wow!
Indeed. Climbing out the road from Agua Verde is much better than the descent as the shear drop off a 12 ft wide rock road is 1000 feet but the way up we are against the mountain the smell of very hot disk brakes isn’t there to remind you to keep your left foot near the emergency brake pedal. Still 2 hours for the drive out to a paved road, 10 miles on scary and the rest just rough but psychologically much easier. My hands hurt from gripping the wheel… why gripping the wheel so hard is supposed to help in some way… I have no idea, it certainly is a response to tension… but I find I have to peel my hands off the wheel every now and then! Please know that the photos I hope to post describe better than words how stunningly jaw drop pretty what we are seeing most every turn.
Each time we change places, depending on the number of days at a spot, we need to find a grocery store, beer, dispose of our trash and waste, get diesel and grab some takeout tacos for the road. Just part of the rhythm required to be off the beaten track. I should also mention everyone here wears a mask indoors. Very safe and they require you do so as well. Even outside at the gas stations! Our water tank is still at 15 gallons and should last until we head north in a week. Every few days we fill the 2.5 gallon solar shower and leave it at the right angle to get hot by the sun. By 3 pm, if lucky, it will be around 100 F; we then drain off about a half gallon and heat it on the stove top to bring the water back up to hot. Then we each get half… and it is luxurious! Clean again!
We then were on a mind numbing flat road of 160 miles (top speed 60 if a bit crazy), it took a number of hours to get to a very nice town of Ciudad Constitucion where we were able to re-provision and move on with fish tacos! The dirt roads off to the Pacific ocean, which we were told were open had a chain over them… argh after a long day’s drive the thought of starting a search for a sleep spot was disconcerting. So we stopped at one of the only places one can get off the 2 lane route 1, there being no shoulder, at a shine for car accident deaths that seem to be about every mile. We decided to not head towards La Paz… no safety there and choose a sand track west…. 10 feet wide for 15 miles with only burrow tracks and poop to indicate it went somewhere. Lo and behold, and Gaia GPS map confirmed we made it to the coast where we again had the luck of the Irish. On a sand dune miles away from folks with crashing surf and grey whale spouts of mist off shore heading south to the calving bays/lagoons. We sat for awhile stunned at our good fortune. It got dark and the surf roared… then Lucy went nuts as we had a pack of coyotes visit! Got her inside fast and are now safely locked in.
We decided to move on the next day as the wind at night coming off the Pacific with us on top of a dune made for troubled sleep. Dreading the drive through La Paz was not wasted emotion as it proved to be nerve wracking mostly due to my impulsive exit off a main road into the labyrinth of Mexican city life. BUT, after my second pass of the same intersection a store was noticed and lo I was delivered into the promised land of Modelo Negro, and a 12 pack at that!
We got out alive though with Lucy as shaken as I. She has had a great leap in behavior improvement on a number of reactions to the cacophony of Mexican life. She has realized that barking out the window at every dog, and there are at least twice as many dogs as families here, is just plain ridiculous and exhausting. For the most part their response is mostly “there goes another wacko gringo dog”. She has also calmed down seeing us pack up on departure days, we won’t leave here behind! She has accepted the routines and tied to a bumper, though embarrassing it allows for ‘crawl under the truck time’.
I have been amassing what can only be described as a Cramer Collection of morning view photos for what will be a huge money making coffee table book. “Views From The Hopper”. You have to admit it is a brilliant, never done before concept. A great gift for those who only dream of enjoying fabulous natural vistas when nature calls as it does each day. I know. It’s mind boggling why it hasn’t been done before.
Leaving the metro region of La Paz going southeast on route 286 with Bahia de Muertos our destination, we were tired from lack of sleep the night before and the mentally challenge of La Paz, it felt great to be heading again to another ‘heard about’ place. We passed by on route, the place where my brother Michael vacationed a few years back, snorkeling with friends, La Ventana (the wind), better known now for kite surfing. Getting to the fork in the road near the coast, one can go on a paved road to Playa de Los Sueños (beach of dreams) or (and this is what always gets me into “I can’t turn around” trouble), after pulling off the road to double check the GPS map with the paper Bench Mark map (never travel without paper map backups), sure enough they did not agree. I would have figured the Gaia GPS maps which are updated almost continually would be more accurate. HA! The dirt road on the GPS map stopped at the base of a very rugged mountain range, across which on the Sea of Cortez side there was an end of a long coastal mountain dirt road coming from the south west 40 kilometers away (this is the access I was planning on taking as it was on both maps). Luann says “ I think the road goes through the mountains now to the other far end”. It was at that moment I should have dug deep into the Rob’s “belt and suspenders” core feeling that this has the potential for a whopper of a mistake. Bahia de Muertos. (apropos).
And though I am now typing this out, it could very easily have ended as an unknown disaster of epic proportions. We went forward. It was apparent that this ‘road’ of 8ft width had just been created. The rock was freshly broken and sharp, no tire tracks as the surface was loose crushed stone. It dawned on me about 2 minutes after the 16% grade up in 4WD low with exhaust brake on and tires skipping in my locked differential that perhaps this was insane.
Yes, yes it was. Within a few hundred yards I realized there was truly no way back. I could neither back down nor turn around. The road looked incredibly narrow with Luann able to reach out the window to touch the wall of the mountain. It ascended up clinging to the curve of the mountain requiring switchbacks around to too many to count corners. The drop off on my side was well over 1000 feet, maybe 2000. All we could do was pray the road was actually finished all the way through and in all honesty I could not imagine descending this grade with all the loose stone… I’d just slide off.
An hour an a half later we came to what we though was a landslide blocking the way but luckily not. The descent on the other side was not as harrowing as the way up but still on my limit of expertise. I was PTE post traumatic exhausted. Modela Negro to the rescue! We dropped to the sea and found the furthest campsite on the beach possible. Magnificent.
We stay here a couple days for sure and will exit via the long shore dirt road. This morning at sunrise, while walking Lucy on the beach, I saw grey whales surface, blow and dive with tails arching high. Then jumping manta rays, flying out of the water. Then mats of hundreds of diving ducks (Koots?) disappearing in unison and popping up as a group. To get an inkling of this imagine yourself on Cape Cod in a camper at the base of the dunes with no one but creatures. Please do not think that the above type of road event predominates the experience on this trip, not at all. But it does spice up a day now and then. Where we ended up is like being in the California desert surrounded by giant saguaro cacti with ocean front sandy beach. (2/19)
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